Here you will find the answer if you’re asking How do I fix my website traffic if my website traffic drops? Your website traffic is low, which means your bottom line is suffering. Company leaders are approaching you with a simple question: “Why is my website traffic declining?” You need an answer (and a solution) fast.
A drop in site traffic can happen for a variety of reasons.
This post covers common reasons for declining website traffic, along with solutions to each problem. Keep reading to find out why your website traffic is slowing down. A quick way to find out why is to enter your URL here for a quick SEO audit, to reduce organic traffic.
How do I fix my website traffic if my website traffic drops?
A website is nothing without its visitors. There are many reasons your website lacks traffic, whether it’s content, format, or Google keywords. This post identifies nine reasons your website isn’t getting any traffic. Read a complete article above all for how do I fix my website traffic if my website traffic drops.
There are many reasons a website or blog is not getting enough traffic.
People also ask in SEO forums “Why is my blog not getting traffic?”, and this is probably one of the most popular questions ever asked. Fortunately, the answer to this question is not simple. This explains why some websites cannot attract traffic.
Things like domain age, author reputation, number, and type of citations. In addition to incoming links, social media strategy, and content freshness all play a role.
But, for the average website, the problem lies in other areas.
What you’ll read below are 5 areas that website owners often overlook because they don’t understand their importance or aren’t sure how to handle them.
Before we get into the details on how do I fix my website traffic if my website traffic drops? Please don’t forget that it may take a few months (or longer) for you to see any positive or negative results when you make a change. So, be patient before you make that decision. Have to check if something works or not. If you need immediate help, how do I fix my website traffic if my website traffic drops? However, you can call now at +92 347 4231250, and our experienced team will help you find and fix the problem!
A new algorithm update was launched
For many companies, an algorithm update is the most common culprit for low website traffic.
Issue
Search engines like Google and Bing don’t stay around. They are always looking for ways to improve the search experience because a better search experience means happier customers, and satisfied customers mean increased loyalty and market share.
That’s why it’s common for search engines to update their algorithms regularly. However, an updated algorithm can change your website’s ranking in search results.
This can improve or decrease your ranking, which affects your site traffic.
If a search engine like Google, for example, updates its algorithm. Your website moves off the first page for a competitive keyword. That’s traffic to your site. This is because only 25 percent of users view the second page of search results.
Solution
While there’s nothing your company can do about improving search engine algorithms, you can adapt your online strategy to these updates. A cross-channel marketing strategy, for example, can help your business get website traffic from multiple sources.
A few examples include:
- Paid advertising
- Social media
If your website’s traffic drops because of an algorithm update, it’s worth investigating the update as well. While search engines like Google rarely comment on algorithm changes, industry experts often compile research that sheds light on what the update entails.
This information can help your team audit your site and make possible improvements to improve your ranking.
Your website is HTTP, not HTTPS
An insecure website can also experience a significant (and permanent) drop in site traffic.
Issue
Online security is important, which is why most websites use Secure Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTPS). HTTPS, compared to Hypertext Transfer Protocol, encrypts and transmits user data, such as credit card information, securely.
Back in 2014, Google announced HTTPS would serve as a small ranking signal for its search engine algorithm. However, in the years since, cybersecurity has become important, which is why Internet browsers, such as Google Chrome, now warn users when visiting a site that uses HTTP versus HTTPS.
An unsafe website alert, full page notification in Google Chrome prevents the user from visiting your site and prompts them to go “back to safety”. Even if a user visits your website, their browser will show that your site is insecure.
An insecure URL in Google Chrome is the reason a website that uses HTTP instead of HTTPS can experience not only lower website traffic but also lower sales. If a customer perceives your site as insecure, they will not feel safe enough to shop online.
Solution
If you are asking, “Why is my website traffic decreasing?” And if your site uses HTTP, you’ll need the help of a developer. With the help of your development team (or a trusted agency like Shakardara), you can update your website to HTTPS, which can quickly restore your site’s traffic.
Get HTTPS for your website with the following steps:
Get a dedicated IP address for your site, unless you already have one.
Purchase a Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificate.
Activate your SSL certificate with your web host.
Install an SSL certificate in your domain.
It may take a few days to activate and install your SSL certificate.
It’s also important for your web development team to redirect users (and search engines) to your secure site. Without redirects, search engines and users can still access your HTTP site, which can hurt your user experience and search engine optimization (SEO) strategy.
Your keyword strategy is outdated
An outdated keyword strategy can lead to a slow, steady, and steady decline in traffic.
Issue
Companies that experience a gradual decline in website traffic need to review their keyword strategy. Even if you don’t have a keyword strategy for SEO, it’s important to evaluate your content and how it ranks in search results.
That’s because people (and their search habits) change.
Google Trends Comparison Between Cell Phones and Smartphone Searches Google Trends, a free tool, shows how to search and even shopping habits are changing. Before introducing the iPhone, and before the eventual takeover of the smartphone, people searched for “cell phones.” However, now most users search for “smartphone”.
If your company doesn’t adapt to these types of changes in your industry, you risk losing valuable website traffic.
This is because your site content will not appear relevant or useful to search engines or users, which can cause lower rankings in search results.
Solution
Updating your keyword strategy is a time- and resource-intensive process. Even if you have a small website, your team needs to improve and revise the content. The return on investment (ROI), however, is substantial and worth the investment.
Back up your website traffic with the following steps:
Audit your keyword strategy by looking for outdated or generic keywords.
Research alternative keywords with higher search volume and overall value.
Revise your content to include these alternative keywords.
In most cases, your company will discover new content topics in your keyword research.
This is a big win for your business as it improves your content marketing planning and SEO strategy. In addition, new content can help your company rank in valuable search results and gain additional site traffic.
Your website design has forgotten about SEO
A site design that doesn’t consider SEO can cause catastrophic damage to your website traffic.
Issue
Redesigning your website is a significant decision, especially if you have an old site. An updated website looks modern and professional, as well as provides a better user experience, which can increase your bottom line.
However, the problem is that many companies forget about SEO when designing their site. Even web design agencies make this mistake. Although they understand design and how to create an attractive and usable website, they don’t recognize the relationship between web design and SEO, and how a redesigned (or redesigned) website drives traffic. can
A few ways a website redesign can hurt your SEO and traffic include:
Replacing page content, including title tags and meta descriptions, with inappropriate content
Creating brand new pages for existing pages, without 301 redirects. Changing the site structure without updating the sitemap. Website redesign without adding your Google Analytics tracking code.
In contrast, site design can prevent your website from achieving dream traffic levels. This is because, without SEO, your site will struggle to appear in search results related to your industry, products, or services.
Since your website design affects your entire site, it’s important to address this issue right away.
Solution
Companies can approach a drop in traffic after a site redesign in a few ways, including:
- Restore your previous site with a backup.
- Improve your new content and website
- Update your sitemap.
- Set up 301 redirects.
Depending on your redesign, your optimization may take a long time.
For example, if your company needs to restart its SEO strategy, it will take time to rank in search results and get the traffic that your website used to get. In comparison, creating a 301 redirect requires less work, although it will probably take a few weeks or months for your traffic levels to recover.
If your original web design doesn’t drive traffic, your team needs to do the same. While you may not need to set up redirects, you will need to create better content for your website and audience.
Your business can also work with a full-service digital marketing company that specializes in web design and SEO, such as Shakardara. We can help your team and company regain your traffic, as well as ensure that future design updates protect your SEO strategy.
Additional Reasons Your Website Traffic Is Slowing
Still, confused about why your website traffic is going down. Check these potential causes:
Why Your Website Traffic Is Low How To Fix Your Website Traffic
- Broken 301 Redirects Review and fix your 301 redirects for errors. Make sure canonical tags, XML sitemaps, and links are up to date.
- Manual Google Penalty Log in to your Google Search Console account and check alerts. Make recommended site or page changes.
- Slow page speed Check page speed with Page Speed Insights Update or use page speed optimization services.
- Poor Internal Linking Audit Internal Linking Strategy Includes internal links to deep content on your website. Use anchor text related to page titles or targeted keywords.
- Unreliable server Review server performance and hosting package Switch to the new service provider or a different hosting package.
- Duplicate Content Check the website for identical blocks of content. Make identical content unique.
- Unindexed Site Google Search Console Check if the site and pages are indexed. Submit the website and pages for indexing.
Get your website traffic back (and then some) with Shakardara
No one wants to see their website traffic decrease, but it happens. Knowing why your website traffic is declining on Google and how you can fix it, however, gives your business the insight and tools to regain your traffic.
Most times, restoring your website traffic is an enormous task, such as after a website redesign or abandoning a keyword strategy.
That’s why businesses partner with our full-service digital marketing agency. With over 25 years of experience plus over 450 web marketing experts, we have the expertise and technology to help your company. Simply browse our testimonials and digital marketing services to see how our team can help you. Give us a ring at +92 347 423 1250 or contact us online if you have questions!
Let’s kick things off with the biggest reason, keywords.
Focus on the right keywords.
The primary focus of any SEO strategy is keyword research. Keywords help search engines understand what your website content is about so that it can be indexed accordingly in search results.
If you’re targeting the wrong keywords, you won’t rank well, meaning you’ll be less visible to your audience. This will lead to less organic traffic to your website.
Other reasons your keywords may not be performing well for your site are:
Have plenty of space with your keywords
You are in a highly competitive industry for targeted keywords.
If your keywords are underperforming, there are a few things to consider:
- Do the pages have a high bounce rate?
- Is organic exposure low?
Do you have a high number of impressions but a low click-through rate?
Focusing content around the wrong keywords can drive low-quality website traffic that won’t convert into sales or leads.
So what can you do to fix poorly targeted keywords? Do in-depth keyword research using a powerful research tool like Google Keyword Planner.
You should aim for long-tail keywords with low competition that you can naturally include in your copy. The key in this sentence is ‘less competition. Low-competition keywords will give you a better chance of ranking well in search results as long as you promote your content properly.
Low-competition keywords increase traffic to your website, but not as much as high-competition keywords. Because of ranking for several keywords with less competition, you can help build trust in your website.
Does your website have the right amount of content?
If you don’t have enough content on your website, you’re hurting your search rankings. It also means you have less to offer your visitors than your competitors.
This doesn’t mean you need to write hundreds of pages of copy. The mantra here is quality over quantity. Make sure you’re writing copy that’s of high quality and provides the answers your customers are looking for.
Search engines have smart algorithms that know if you are spamming your content marketing.
Consider the following when researching and writing a copy for your website. What stage of the buyer’s journey is the customer at? Are they looking for an answer to a question, researching a product, or are they ready to buy?
E-A-T (Expert, Authentic, Trusted)
Google wants your website to become an authority in the field in which you specialize. They want you to be an expert in your field and they want you to be trustworthy with your content, otherwise, Google is unlikely to rank your website highly.
These three features determine the quality of your content.
When evaluating your site’s content for E-A-T, Google looks at a few things, including:
- Site structure – is it logical and easy for users to find information?
- Are all pages accessible?
- Is there an ‘About Us page?
- Are there multiple ways a customer can contact you?
- Does your website have a privacy policy and terms of service?
- Who is the author of the content? Are they an expert in their field?
- What kind of reputation does your business have? Look to get great business reviews.
- Is the website content business related?
E-A-T (expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness) is important for every website. This is strongly emphasized within Google’s content quality guidelines. This will help increase your Google rankings and improve the overall user experience of your site.
Write for humans.
Remember to write your copy for the user, not the bots. We can get so focused on improving that we lose sight of the audience.
Here are some points to consider in making your content more appealing to users:
- Write in a conversational style.
- Use eye-catching visuals.
- Break large paragraphs into smaller chunks that are easy for the user to digest.
- Break up content with headings, bullet points, and numbered lists where necessary.
- By writing for humans, you will keep the user engaged and more likely to make a purchase or return to your website in the future.
Remember: Don’t forget to include an effective call to action.
You should audit your content to ensure it is up-to-date, remove any old content that is no longer needed such as past events, and refresh any old articles. To do this, they must be redeveloped and updated.
What about your competitors?
See what your competitors are targeting and create a copy that’s better than them. The best way to discover these insights is to conduct a competitive analysis. As a result, this will help you develop a strong content strategy that will drive website traffic.
The analysis should include:
- Competitors that rank for your target keywords.
- Content audit of your competitors.
Promoting Content
It’s important to let people know your website has all this great content, so having a strategy to promote that content is important. Otherwise, your website is unlikely to get traffic.
A popular rule of thumb is to spend 20% creating content and 80% promoting it.
The key is to promote where your audience is. This can be on social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter or specific industry websites and networks among other channels.
The key here is to find what works for your target audience.
Another content promotion channel that you should spend some time and effort on is email marketing.
Typically, this segment of your audience has already interacted with your business and is more likely to become repeat customers. Growth software can automate and integrate sales and marketing functions, providing the right focus at each stage of the customer journey.
Technical Issues
The rules and best practices set out by Google regarding the algorithm should be followed. Two major algorithms are Panda and Penguin. If you don’t follow best practices, you risk getting your website penalized or flagged by Google.
There are updates to the algorithm several times throughout the year, so you should stay up to date with them.
You will know about it if you encounter an update from either Penguin or Panda–the website traffic will drop from one day to the next.
Note:
→ Penguin Algorithm–Focuses on links.
→ Panda Algorithm – Focuses on content.
Optimized for mobile
Most of the search activity these days is done on mobile devices. As a result, ensure that you fully optimize your website for mobile use. Google’s indexing system is now mobile-first – meaning it prioritizes mobile over desktop.
Your content isn’t good enough.
Believe it or not, search engines and especially Google have become very efficient at identifying good content.
So, if your content is not good enough and your website is not of high quality, your chances of getting a high ranking in SERPs and getting traffic decrease.
In the old days, you could ‘easily’ trick the search engines by sending a few backlinks to your content and getting high rankings, but that’s not the case anymore.
Aside from search engines, let’s not forget social media’s indirect impact on rankings and traffic.
Content that is not of high quality has little chance of performing well on various social media channels.
What is good content and what kind of content can get you traffic?
Content that attracts website visitors has the following features:
- It meets all the SEO content suggestions that work after Panda and Penguin.
- It is published on a website that has a current number of standard (indexed) pages.
- If your website is new, even if you have excellent content, it is difficult to rank high, especially if there are older and larger (in terms of indexed pages) websites on the same topic.
- It is unbiased and well-researched. If you always write in favor of a particular product, method, or service, or if you only publish rewritten text, you’re wasting your time.
- Good content is original and tells both sides of the story.
- It’s fresh. Consumers want to read the latest content and so do search engines and social media.
You are targeting high competition keywords.
This is a very common mistake and one of the main reasons a website doesn’t get enough traffic (at least from search engines).
Consider these 2 factors:
- There are only 10 spots available on the first page of SERPs for each keyword.
- Search engines are trying to display pages from trusted websites in places that meet their ranking criteria.
- If you have a new website or even a mature website but it is less reliable than others, your pages will not show up on the first pages (if you both target the same keywords making).
- All popular keywords have top competition, so if you are only targeting popular keywords, it will be very difficult to rank well.
So, if popular keywords are out of the question, how can you get traffic?
The answer lies on the long trail. When you use the Google Keyword Tool to research your keywords, target low-competition, long-tail keywords.
For example:
Let’s say you’re writing about weight loss. The most popular keyword in this space is “how to lose weight fast”.
If you write a post with the title “How to lose weight fast” and publish it on your website, there is a high probability that that post will never bring organic traffic to your website because of the same. There are already thousands of articles with the title and more reliable ones. Sites.
If you search for low-competition, long-tail keywords like “how to lose pounds” and you change the title slightly to “how to lose 5 pounds quick,” your chances of ranking on the first page, Provided you promote your blog post properly is more.
The traffic gains are less than four high-competition keywords, but ranking for several terms (even if they’re low-competition) is a great way to increase a website’s credibility.
You can also read How to Choose Blog Post Topics as a step-by-step example of how to use the Google Keyword Tool to find low-competition, long-tail keywords.
Your website is slow
We certainly know that page speed is a ranking factor and various studies have shown that users are more likely to visit websites that load quickly.
The opposite is also true: if a website doesn’t load in 4-5 seconds, users are more likely to leave.
So, your website may be ranking and getting traffic from referrals from search engines or social media, but as soon as users land on a slow-loading page, they leave without entering.
What if I make my website load faster?
From my experience, if you improve the loading time of a website that already has some ranking, the traffic will increase because the ranking will improve.
If your website is slow but has no first page rankings, by addressing the page speed issue, you increase the chances of the page or pages ranking in the top 10 positions on the Google Search Engine.
You get hit by a panda or a penguin
The average webmaster or blogger may not be aware of Panda or Penguin and how these algorithmic changes affect the ranking position and traffic a website receives from Google.
If you’re hearing these words for the first time, I suggest you read these two quick guides from Wikipedia: Panda and Penguin
In terms of traffic, if you’re affected by Panda or Penguin or any other algorithmic changes, you’ll see your traffic drop dramatically from day to day.
You can open your Google Analytics report and find the actual history of the traffic change and compare it to the page that says Google changed its ranking algorithm.
If there is a mismatched date and depending on the changes, you may have to take several steps to restore your traffic.
It wasn’t a Panda or Penguin, but I still don’t get enough traffic. Why?
If you’re when your website has never got a significant number of visitors, it might be because of:
- It is still young (less than 6 months old).
- You have little content.
- You don’t use social media marketing to promote your website.
- You’re making any of these SEO mistakes.
- You focus only on getting traffic from search engines without looking for alternative sources of traffic.
You hired the wrong SEO firm
Unfortunately, this happens too often. The web is full of ‘SEO companies’ promising first page rankings, but their methods and techniques destroy any chance your website has of getting organic traffic.
How to choose a reliable SEO firm?
I have summarized some general guidelines on how to successfully outsource SEO, but as a general rule believe everything you read on the web before double-checking their claims. Don’t do it.
In Conclusion, how do I fix my website traffic if website traffic drops?
Every website aims to get traffic from search engines, social media sites, direct visits, etc. When it doesn’t, you feel you’re wasting your time and you lose trust in the internet. There are billions of internet users around the world and as you are reading this article, thousands of people are searching for information or hanging out on social media platforms. That none (or only a few) of them visit your website means you’re doing something wrong.
This could be because of the above reasons mentioned above. Hopefully, by the time you’ve read this post, you’ll have a better idea of what you’re doing wrong and some ideas on how to turn the situation around.
About the author
Javed Hayat is a 5 Star Freelancer, Web Developer, SEO Expert, business promoter, digital marketing consultant, and Homeopathic Doctor @Shakardara. He has over 20 years of practical experience with SEO and digital marketing. He is an expert in e-commerce and has consulted with Fortune 800 companies in various industries for their web development. In addition, he blogs regularly about SEO and digital marketing, and his work has been cited by leading marketing websites. Connect with Javed Hayat on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. You can ask for a Free Consultation.
